As Winter is quickly approaching, two students in the Lakeview High School Art Program had the opportunity to paint the blade of a snowplow that will be plowing the streets of Cortland on upcoming snowy winter mornings.

The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) has been offering to use a Lakeview themed plow blade for a couple years now, but Lakeview’s art teacher Jeff Piper just couldn’t find the time to fit it into his busy classroom schedule. This year that changed as two juniors, Ashley Hetherington and Alyssa Rodgers, completed this lengthy project all on their own.

Hetherington says “it took about 3 weeks”, as they painted every day during their 4th period class.

The girls came up with the idea to use our mascot, instead of writing out Lakeview because of the short snow plow blade length.

The girls first came up with a stencil in class but the ended up drawing the image freehand  onto the blade. Their skill is very impressive because the drawing looks professionally done. The girls had a few difficulties with the weather, considering we had a few very hot days in the beginning of the year, which made the plow very hot and difficult to work with from sitting in the sun.

Rodgers explains another difficulty they had was “the enamel paint dried very fast, causing the brushes to become hard, and the spray can the clear coat was in also had some malfunctions.”

Although they faced some difficulties, the plow turned out great. Be sure to look for the plow this winter as it might be signaling a Snow Day!